Scott Dixon and Helio Castroneves will take their championship battle to the lightning-fast Auto Club Speedway Saturday night, October 19th, as the IZOD IndyCar Series rolls into Fontana, CA for its season finale: the MAVTV 500.
Opened in 1997, the track will be playing host to its 12th Indy car event; six under CART sanction (1997-2002) and six by IRL/IndyCar (2002-’05 & ’12-’13).
The 2.0 mile D-shaped oval has seen an all-time Indy car record one-lap qualifying run by Gil de Ferran of 241.428 mph (2000-CART). This compares to Marco Andretti’s pole speed of 216.069 mph two-lap effort last year.
Castroneves, who dominated the championship points chase throughout most of the season, gave up his 49-point lead to Dixon after finishing 18th and 23rd at the Houston doubleheader weekend back in September. Dixon now leads Castroneves by 25 points and can secure his third IICS championship with a fifth-place finish at Fontana no matter where Castroneves finishes.
Castroneves has never won the championship during his 16 years in CART/IndyCar, all for Roger Penske. He has finished second twice (2002,’08).
Behind the leaders, Simon Pagenaud is third followed by Justin Wilson, Marco Andretti and the 2012 series’ champion Ryan Hunter-Reay.
Saturday’s race will mark the fourth time that Dixon has lead the standings going into the final race; winning it all in 2003 and ’08, and finishing second to Dario Franchitti in 2009.
This will be the eighth year in a row that the championship will be decided during the final race of the IndyCar season. It will also be the sixth year in a row that a driver from Team Penske will compete for the championship- this time against its arch-rivals from Target Chip Ganassi.
Team Penske has won 12 Indy car national championships, with the most recent coming in 2006 for Sam Hornish Jr. Target Chip Ganassi has won the crown nine times, most recently with Dario Franchitti in 2011.
Also on the line Saturday will be the engine manufacturer’s title. Chevrolet and Honda are tied with eight wins each after splitting the two races in Houston. This will be the sixth oval track on the 2013 schedule with Chevrolet having captured four of the five run so far. Honda’s only oval win was secured by Dixon at Pocono.
Several top drivers who have scored podium finishes find that Saturday’s race will be their final chance to gain a victory in 2013. Among those are Marco Andretti, Graham Rahal and Justin Wilson who hope to sneak their first win of the season while Dixon and Castroneves battle for the series’ crown.
Ed Carpenter, who scored his first win as an owner/driver last year at Fontana, is another pilot hungry for a chance to win before the season ends. Carpenter is always fast on oval circuits, having won the pole at Indianapolis in May. His four top-ten finishes this year have all come on ovals and he has first and second-place finishes at the banked Kentucky oval on his resume’.
So who will win the race and who will capture the championship?
Look for a surprise to win the race. I’ll pick Carpenter in the Fuzzy’s Vodka-Chevrolet to take the race based on his oval track success and win here last year. If not Ed, wouldn’t it be neat to see A.J.Allmendinger put his IZOD Team Penske-Chevrolet in the winner’s circle as IZOD ends its run as series’ title sponsor?
The championship winner is easy. Dixon is on a late-season roll and will race conservatively enough to finish in the top-five and win the crown despite Helio’s efforts.
NOTES:
• Castroneves: “At this point I feel that I have nothing to lose, so there is no pressure to be honest. You just have to go for it.”
Dixon: “Every year we compete, we try to win the championship and I think definitely over the last five or six years we’ve had a good shot sort of going into the last one each of those years. As typical of many IndyCar championships, I think it’s going to come down to the last lap, last corner scenario.”
• Allmendinger is entered in the MAVTV 500 despite earlier statements by Team Penske that they would only field cars for Castroneves and Power. Many suspect a third car was entered to try and take away points that Dixon might use to win the championship. Allmendinger hasn’t run in the series since June when he was involved in two race-ending incidents during Detroit’s Belle Isle doubleheader.
• When Tony Kanaan qualifies for the Fontana race he will extend his streak of consecutive starts in the series to 215.
• Twenty-five drivers/cars are entered in the season’s final event. Canadian Alex Tagliani was chosen by Chip Ganassi to replace the injured Dario Franchitti.
• Sebastian Saavedra will attempt to defend his Dragon Racing team’s 22nd place in the standings. That position is the last spot in IndyCar’s Leader’s Circle Program and is worth $1million to the team if Saavedra can finish in that position or higher.
• Indy Car’s 2014 schedule will be announced on Thursday evening, October 17, during a one-hour race preview show on the NBC Sports Network at 8:00 p.m. (ET).
• Qualifying will be telecast Friday at 7:00 p.m. (ET) on NBCSN, while the MAVTV 500 will be shown at 8:00 p.m. (ET) on Saturday. SiriusXM will broadcast the race on Channel 211.
The following two tabs change content below.